WEEKEND RUBRICS: 6/20/26
Michelle and Michel and Michelle
Mrs. Obama led the way in her opening remarks at the Obama Presidential Library.
In the days before the vulgarisation of America when a gloating sociopath, turning 80, demanded the desecration of the White House lawn with the grim and ugly glee he feels at the glorification of a blood sport - something John McCain once tried to ban as “human cockfighting” before he too saw that so many of his voters conflated with its audience (conclusions can be drawn as well as blood) - the New York Knicks manifested a communal joy that was deeply American when they won the NBA championship. They only lost to the Spurs when the sociopath’s ugly and grim con man countenance, glowering sleepily from the owner’s box during game three, robbed the city momentarily of its joy and the Knicks of their momentum. In the days after the spectacle of the bloodsport - and the slow-rolling surrender of the sociopath and thus alas America in his and Netanyahu’s war with Iran - there was the opening of the Library. The interregnum of the blood sport and the slouch-and-shrug of surrender signalled the two bigger interregnums of the sociopath’s occupation of the Oval Office. I trust that America can get to the other side of this and look back especially on the second interregnum and the glum lessons it can teach us about ourselves before interring it in history and moving on to whatever glories await atop its interment.
I began to cry when Mrs. Obama spoke of her husband’s maternal grandparents who helped to raise him as mine did my brother and sister and me, grandparents “who didn’t have much, but they had the perfect recipe to nurture your flame.”
And I cried, too, for the America she summoned in her remarks.
An excerpt:
“All right, to all of you joining us today, our invited guests, and everyone listening and watching from afar, the Obama Presidential Center was created as a beacon of hope, a monument to our unshakable values, the ones my husband has exemplified his entire life, equality, empathy, honesty, inclusion, fairness.
“And especially during these anxious and divisive times, it is so important that we remember that those values are not unique to my husband. They are the same ones that your husbands and wives, your parents and children, your friends and neighbors exhibit and pass on. Every single day, millions of people in this country wake up doing their very best to live decent and purposeful lives.
“Yet, we’re all tested in one way or another. And there are plenty of times we all fall short, but deep down in our hearts and souls we all know right from wrong. We know selflessness from greed, righteousness from injustice. We understand that we all rise and fall together, that every last one of us is an invaluable contributor to the greatness of America.
“And I’m talking about the workers living paycheck to paycheck, hoping to give their kids a better future, the teachers using their own money to take their students on field trips, the business owners struggling to meet payroll, but refusing to close their doors, all those folks sweating over stoves to provide meals for their communities, folks shivering in the freezing cold to deliver our packages, picking up trash to keep our parks clean, volunteers dedicating their weekends to coaching T-ball or directing the church choir or mentoring a child.
“That’s where the truth of this country lies, not in grabbing as much as we can get for ourselves or knocking folks down to prop ourselves up, but in the overwhelming goodness, the relentless striving, the quiet dignity that is inside all of us.
“Our greatest hope is that this center can reflect back just a fraction of that light, that it can capture the beauty of who we all are, no matter what we look like, or where we come from, or how much money we earn, or how we pray, or vote, or speak, or love.
“It’s why, during our administration, we threw open the White House doors to all sorts of folks who don’t usually get to meet the President or First Lady, the families pinching pennies to send their first child to college, the teenagers who know that a hot afternoon means the bullets start flying, the military spouses and children serving and sacrificing just like their loved ones in uniform, the native kids showing us that resilience and pride can never be stolen, the 4H’ers and FFA members with calluses on their hands from feeding livestock, the immigrants proving what it truly means to be a dreamer.
“These folks aren’t Americans, too. They are America. They are the beating heart of this country. They are us and we are them. And to ignore the simple truth, to refuse to respect the contributions and experiences of people who aren’t exactly like us, y’all, it puts us all at risk. Failing to see the humanity in all people puts us all on a slippery slope.
“And once that slide starts, there’s no telling where it stops, a dangerous precedent that flies in the very face of our faith and of the founding promise of this democracy that all of us, all of us are created equal, that each of us is a child of God with an errant value.
“And no one, and I mean no one, has the right to sit in judgment of who’s American enough.
“And that’s why, folks, we simply don’t have the luxury or time to be cynical or complacent, to wring our hands in despair, to wait for someone else to fix the problem. Y’all, hope is all we have, because hope is the essential spark that lights the fire of change, but hope is a choice. Whether or not we use our voices to speak up is a choice. Voting is a choice. Being a decent human being is a choice. Believing that we still hold the power to build a country that reflects us all is a choice.
“The Obama Presidential Center is a living testament to the power of choice, y’all, the historic example that millions of you gave the world about what this imperfect democracy has strived for and achieved, and an urgent call to go out there and do it again.”
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